


almost like hope

by ncfan



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Chapter 699, Chapter 699 Rewrite, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 23:02:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7550647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I... You see, Sensei finally told me what really happened to your clan. What <em>really</em> happened. I didn't know. ...I'm sorry." Sasuke and Sakura's parting scene in 699 goes differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	almost like hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chidorinnn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chidorinnn/gifts).



> I originally posted this to Tumblr; however, in the interests of preserving the fic, I have decided to post it here as well. I don't usually write SasuSaku, because quite frankly I don't _like_ SasuSaku, but I'd had a fic idea burning in my brain, and decided to write Sasuke and Sakura's parting scene in 699 a bit differently. As on Tumblr, this fic is for chidorinnn.

“Sasuke-kun!”

When he heard her voice, Sasuke was well outside the village gates, in a place where the only sound to greet his ears should have been the hollow wind murmuring in the trees. He didn’t want to stop, not now, not with Kakashi’s ‘warnings’ still catching so bitterly in his throat, but all the same, something made him pause, and turn about to look at her.

He half-expected tears from Sakura, but her face was dry, if pale. She stood maybe ten feet from him and didn’t try to close the gap. Her fists were clenched, her mouth set, her eyes oddly bright. “Sasuke—“

“You can’t come with me, Sakura,” Sasuke told her flatly. “This has nothing to do with you.”

“It’s not that.”

“What, then?”

Sakura swallowed hard, squeezing her eyes shut. “I… You see, Sensei finally told me what really happened to your clan,” she murmured. Her eyes fluttered open, but she didn’t look at him. Instead she stared at the ground as though she would have liked to tear it apart. “What _really_ happened. I didn’t know. …I’m sorry.”

That was hardly surprising (Though Sasuke thought it a bit counterintuitive to the idea of teams standing on equal footing that Naruto and Kakashi had kept her in the dark for so long). Konoha wouldn’t want its dirty laundry being aired in the light of day—that was the whole reason he’d been effectively exiled, wasn’t it? But really, what difference did it make, what _she_ felt about things?

“Save your sympathy, Sakura.” He didn’t even feel irritated, as he might have, in times past. Just tired. “It won’t change anything.”

At that, Sakura looked back up, and she took a step towards Sasuke, her brow furrowed. “But that’s just the thing, isn’t it?” she asked softly, almost as if to herself. Then, she frowned, and said, very firmly, “Sasuke-kun, we can make things _right_ —I _want_ to make it right—but it’s going to be hard enough as it is and we can’t do anything if you’re not here.”

“What?” Sasuke gaped at her, shocked. “Why would you—“

“Because it was wrong!”

Her shout reverberated in Sasuke’s ears long after any echo of it faded from the air. Sasuke stared at Sakura as though he had never seen her before—indeed, he didn’t think he _had_ seen her before now.

The elders demanded an _apology_ from him for what he had done; those bloodsuckers wouldn’t suffer for what they’d done at all. Kakashi acted as though Sasuke was some punk whose desire for justice was just the acts of a teenager throwing a tantrum. Even Naruto in his euphoria over having finally gotten Sasuke to return to Konoha seemed to have completely forgotten about the injustices piled on top of not just the Uchiha clan but anyone who didn’t toe the party line.

No one, not a single person in all of Konohagakure who knew the truth, had looked at that truth, looked at him and said: “It was wrong.”

No one but Sakura.

“I—T-there are things I have to do.” He was stammering but he hardly cared; he just kept staring at Sakura, dumbfounded, still reeling from what must have been his first sight of her after all. “There are people I need to find.”

“Taka?”

“Yes." 

Sakura smiled warmly, her eyes crinkling up. “Good.”

“ _Good_?” Sasuke had brought up the topic of finding Taka to Naruto, only for Naruto to nearly blow his top at the very suggestion of it. Naruto saw them as nothing more than Orochimaru’s underlings, even Karin, his own flesh and blood. Naruto wanted Sasuke to behave as though the years he’d spent under Orochimaru’s tutelage and the bonds he had made there had never happened. (He suspected that all of Konoha felt the same.)

“Yes, good.” Sakura linked her arms behind her back and grinned a touch sheepishly. “I always wondered if you were lonely in Oto, but it looks like you made good friends while you were there. The kind of friends worth holding on to.” Her grin shifted to another one of those peculiarly warm smiles, a smile Sasuke almost wanted to bask in, it was so warm. “So go find them, and hurry back. We’ve got work to do, don’t we?”

Sasuke nodded stiffly, too stunned to manage a farewell to her.

There was something strange burning inside of him. It almost felt like hope.

He walked on down the path, the old leaves of autumn crunching beneath his feet. But he would walk on, and eventually he would reach a place where all the dead leaves gave way to the green shoots of spring.


End file.
